


Zombies vs. Alien(ist)s

by INMH



Series: trope-bingo Fanfiction Fills 2018 (1st Half) [15]
Category: The Alienist (TV), The Alienist - Caleb Carr
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Crack, Drama, Gen, Humor, Supernatural - Freeform, Zombie Apocalypse, Zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-09
Updated: 2018-03-09
Packaged: 2019-03-26 09:48:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13855254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/INMH/pseuds/INMH
Summary: Crack. Conducting a criminal investigation under the authorities’ radar in zombie-infested New York has its difficulties.





	Zombies vs. Alien(ist)s

_CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!_  
  
At once, every member of the 808 Broadway apartment groaned in unison.  
  
“ _Again_ ,” Laszlo grunted, striding over to the windows with practiced speed and yanking the reinforced shutters closed.  
  
John rolled his eyes; he’d been good all week, but by God, he couldn’t do it anymore. He poured himself a drink and downed it in a few gulps before dragging himself out of the chair and stumbling to the door to set the locks in place.  
  
Sara and the Isaacsons were checking their guns. “I swear, this is the third time this week,” Sara muttered, checking to ensure that her Derringer was loaded.  
  
“Fourth!” Laszlo exclaimed, throwing his good arm up in exasperation. “If the police cannot be bothered to solve these murders, then can they at least dedicate their time to keeping the undead hordes at bay?” He turned to Stevie, who’d pulled a fire-poker from the case beside the fireplace, and shook his head. “Into the closet, Stevie.”  
  
“Oh, come on!” Stevie complained, letting the poker drop and thud against the carpeted floor. “They might not even get in, and it’s not like they move fast enough to-”  
  
“ _Closet,_ ” Laszlo repeated, in the same tone he used to berate Stevie for his smoking. The boy pouted, but then turned and walked into the closet, latching the door shut behind him- he took the poker with him, however. “Alright then, I suppose we can carry on, so long as we’re not in any immediate danger. Sara, you were telling us your theory about the killer’s…”  
  
John couldn’t focus; he went over to the window Laszlo had shuttered, and he carefully teased one open a crack, just so he could look out at the street and see the state of affairs below. Now that he was closer, he could hear the groans and snarls from the street below, the clacking teeth and dragging feet. He thought of his grandmother, probably entertaining company at home, and Joseph, probably with a customer at the Golden Rule, and hoped they were safe.  
  
They finally came into view, a smattering of stumbling, struggling undead making their way down the street, sniffing about for victims. They had a strange, lurching gait that was easy to take advantage of in a fight, and Stevie had not been wrong when he’d said they weren’t very fast; but they could move in bursts of speed every now and then, enough to be threatening. No, the real problem, when fighting them, was environment: Fight them on the street, and it was too easy to become overwhelmed; but fight them in an enclosed space, and it was too difficult to maneuver, too easy to be backed into a corner.  
  
“John,” Laszlo sighed, hand dropping from the chalkboard in exasperation, “Please, it isn’t anything you haven’t seen before.”  
  
“They’re not coming up, are they?” Lucius asked, tapping his thumbnail on the grip of the gun.  
  
“They’re wandering the streets,” John reported, watching as a few rotting former-people stumbled up the steps of a building and started clawing at the door. “Scratching at a few doors- not ours,” He added quickly.  
  
“Good thing father had the locks replaced the other day,” Marcus muttered to Lucius.  
  
“Come sit, John,” Laszlo repeated impatiently.  
  
“I’d rather keep an eye on the ambulatory corpses currently on the hunt for our flesh,” John remarked flatly.  
  
“Don’t worry, John, I won’t let them eat you,” Sara cooed, smiling and waving the derringer in the air.  
  
“Can I come out now?” Came Stevie’s muffled shout from the closet.  
  
“Stay where you are, Stevie- and I had better not smell cigarette smoke!” Laszlo called back.  
  
_CRASH._  
  
Every head in the room whipped towards the door.  
  
“Oh no,” Lucius moaned softly, lifting the gun off his lap and hesitantly pointing it towards the door.  
  
John slowly moved away from the window, backing up towards Laszlo; things were about to get ugly, and Laszlo was at a considerable disadvantage with his arm being what it was. Of course, now John was realizing that he’d been so busy taking a drink after the alarm went off that he had not actually armed himself.  
  
Damn.  
  
From the sounds coming from the window, the police had finally gotten it together and were fighting back against the hordes: Gunshots peppered the air, along with human shouting and inhuman screeching. But it was clear that whatever was going on outside, the noise inside the building, in the stairwell that led up to their apartment, was getting louder and more violent. Sara and the Isaacsons pointed their guns at the door- it seemed like they were going to find out whether or not Sara’s claims about her derringer’s capabilities were true or not- and waited. John hung back with Laszlo, glancing around the room for an impromptu weapon.  
  
“Hey, is everything alright out there?” Stevie called from the closet.  
  
“Stay where you are and don’t make a sound!” Laszlo barked back.  
  
**BAM.**  
  
The door shook, and a guttural moan could be heard on the other side. For a split second there was complete silence, and then-  
  
**BAM.**  
  
The door rattled, and John heard wood splintering.  
  
“Should I shoot?” Sara asked softly.  
  
**BAM.**  
  
“It only sounds like one,” Marcus whispered.  
  
“A big one, that’s about to break down the only secure door in the apartment,” Sara hissed.  
  
**_BAM!_**  
  
The door splintered, bowed under the sheer ferocity of the attack, and without warning a much smaller concussion caused the door to fly open, still on its hinges but clearly damaged. And standing in the doorway was a man with bloody, torn clothes, and a face covered in gashes and pus and gangrene, eyes glazed and bloodshot.  
  
“ _GRAWR!_ ” Came the guttural howl from its throat.  
  
Sara, predictably, shot first, and it hit the corpse’s shoulder. But to their shock, it recovered quickly and lunged forward, causing Sara and the Isaacsons to jump aside in a panic. John jerked back, hitting Laszlo’s chest and slamming them both into the chalkboard. The corpse only made it about halfway towards them, and it took time for it to recover and regroup; it was enough time for John to grab a chair that was seated at the table beside him and raise it over his head.  
  
_WHACK._  
  
(God, the _sound._ )  
  
_WHACK._  
  
_WHACK._  
  
_WHA **CRUNCH.**_  
 _**  
** **CRUNCH.**_  
 **** _  
CRUNCH._  
  
John’s muscles turned to goo, and he dropped the chair off to the side. Breathless, he fell to his knees, just managing to avoid landing on the blood and gore that was now splattered across the floor. He gagged slightly, and was relieved to feel Laszlo grab him under the arm with his good hand and pull him away.  
  
“For the love of God, why do you have those things if you don’t mean to _use_ them?” Laszlo remarked to Sara and the Isaacsons, bewildered.  
  
“I _did_ use it!” Sara insisted. “But I could hardly fire a shot with John bludgeoning the damn thing to death with a chair!”  
  
“What she said,” Marcus wheezed, still trying to shake off the adrenaline.  
  
“Oh dear,” Lucius muttered, eyeing the door nervously. “That’s not good. That thing was stronger than it should have been, and I’m not sure we’re going to be able to put it back to rights before this is all-”  
  
“ _JESUS!_ ”  
  
Before Lucius could finish, a corpse came hurling into the apartment- this time it was a woman with wild hair and expensive dress.  
  
(“My God, that might be Mrs. Moseby- I’d wondered where she’d gone,” Sara would mutter later as she dumped a chunk of flesh into a cloth bag for disposal).  
  
Sara raised her gun again, but to their surprise, Stevie sprung up behind the undead woman and proceeded to bash her over the head with the fire-poker.  
**  
** _THUNK._  
  
The woman dropped down, twitching slightly, and Marcus took the initiative to step forward and fire the killing shot whilst Lucius tried to secure the door.  
  
“See?” Stevie said, twirling the poker in his hand. “I got my uses.”  
  
“You certainly do, Stevie,” Laszlo acknowledged agreeably, still holding a piece of chalk in his hand from before the attack. “Now get back in the damn closet.”  
  
“We’re going to be here all night,” Lucius grumbled, holding the door shut whilst Marcus tried to fix it and Sara pushed a drawer in front of it as a barricade.  
  
“Plenty of time to get drunk, then,” John muttered, and reached over the corpse on the floor for his glass.  
  
Laszlo threw his hands up, and then tossed the chalk away.  
   
-End  
 


End file.
